How do I use Oriental Medicine to control pain?

By Rey Ximenes MD

Oriental medicine is just a term created by the Western world. Nevertheless, it usually refers to traditional medical practices derived from the rest of the world that look at the body as a whole, mind and spirit rather than focusing on specific aspects of the body’s distress.

Even in Australia, the indigenous population has its own traditional forms of medicine, a combination of treatments and herbs to heal the body.

An important part of Eastern medicine is its holistic view. Where Western medicine adopts a reductionist treatment approach, Eastern medicine focuses on the overall situation. It is best used to deal with constitutional issues in the body to improve and maintain the overall health and well-being of an individual.

However, both have a place in modern medicine. Suppose you are going to have a car accident and tear the aortic valve of your heart. In this case, Western medicine is essential for surgery and stability after injury. However, once you have made initial interventions and are in the recovery phase, oriental medical practices such as acupuncture can help you improve overall health and cardiovascular function, thereby improving recovery and improving quality of life.

What is considered Eastern medicine for pain?

Oriental medicine is so diverse that they have a variety of different treatments for pain that can be used with Western medicine. Nutrition and diet are one of the most important traditional medical treatments. In Western medicine, this is also emphasized as an important source of recovery.

Proper nutrition can enhance the functions of several body systems, such as the neurological, immune and endocrine systems, which directly affect your pain. It can also reduce inflammation in the body, thereby greatly reducing pain and soreness. Your diet can also affect your mental, emotional and physical strength and health, which can also consider the pain you may suffer.

Oriental medicine also encourages your daily exercises; practices like Zhigong and Tai Chi Zhi are very popular in East Asia and originated in China. Yoga is also a popular practice from South Asia. All these exercises are often slower movements, focusing on breathing and exercise (chee)/prana movements, in words the energy of life force flows through your body to relieve stress, pain, illness and discomfort, and is a great all-rounder sports.

Since traditional medicine tends to focus on the body as a whole, energy flow is an important part of the healing process. According to traditional medicine, balanced and harmonious energy flows can release pain on all levels, namely mental, emotional, and physical and mental pain. It can help you empower you and release any sense of helplessness, improve your mood, self-esteem, and enable your body to heal and function better.

Traditional Tai Chi is done in a group, usually associated with any form of discomfort associated with the expression of “playing the game” or the expression associated with the expression of “you play Tai Chi.” Many times, you may also feel sad, depressed, or anxious when you experience pain. These exercises are designed to relieve your symptoms so that the body can heal faster without blocking.

Traditional medicine also includes massage, cupping and Gua Sha or scratching. Scraping and cupping are both forms of massage therapy. Gua Sha is a traditional Chinese exercise in which practitioners use tools made of buffalo horns and scrape them inside your body to help reduce stiffness, soreness and pain. Cupping is a traditional practice from China, the Middle East and Egypt. Practitioners use glass or bamboo cups placed on the skin and have a suction pump to suck tissue into the cup. Sometimes, the inside of the cup even uses a fire brush to generate suction. This helps release tension in the field.

Cupping and Gua Sha usually don’t cause more pain or damage, although they can leave a lot of bruises on your body. After a few days, this bruise may be quite therapeutic and tends to be relieved.

These massage treatments can and tend to pair with acupuncture to support the health of the individual, often resulting in significant pain relief. Acupuncture refers to the use of fine needles by practitioners to stimulate certain “channels” or points on the body, which can relieve pain, illness and discomfort.

Are these oriental medical treatments dangerous?

Anything that is done medically without a licensed practitioner or casually can cause problems and can be dangerous. Just like a surgeon opening an artery during surgery, you can have huge side effects, and similar side effects can occur if the acupuncturist places the needle in the wrong area, which can cause pneumothorax or lung collapse.

However, the inherent risks of traditional medicine are less than those of Western medicine, because Western medicine is more intense and tends to have a more profound effect. Most practitioners who practice cupping know that it is not suitable for people who perform anticoagulation or prone to coagulation. So you need to look for practitioners who are licensed and have established practices to make sure you will understand the people who know the function of the body and the side effects of treatment.

Can I include Eastern and Western medicines to deal with pain?

Over the past twenty or thirty years, there have been an increasing number of Eastern and Western medicines to develop more comprehensive treatment plans, especially pain. For example, you can undergo back pain surgery, but you are also encouraged to go to an acupuncturist, or you can receive cupping or scratching once you recover from the surgery and are in recovery.

There are also new forms of treatment, not necessarily Eastern or Western medicine, as doctors are considering new forms of regenerative medicine that use the body itself to repair itself. This form of treatment works when blood sucking, plasma and red blood cells are separated. Remove the platelet-rich fraction and separate it from the platelet-poor fraction. Then, it’s a problem for doctors to inject platelet-rich fractions into injured or sick joints. This stimulates the body’s ability to repair itself to heal specific areas of the body.

Usually, after 4-6 weeks, it tends to increase by 30-40%, and over time, there may be more. The process can then be repeated if necessary. This therapy varies in everyone’s body. Some people have 100% improvement, while others have lower chances of improvement. Young people or people with better health may have a higher likelihood of improvement. It only depends on the person’s “curableness”.

Overall, mixing the two forms of medication together increases the effectiveness of healing pain. The mixture looks at the entire patient, their mind, body and spirit. Pain is usually more than just a localized body sensation. It can also stem from psychological, emotional and mental illnesses, so it can unravel all the dilemmas that affect your body and heal it will have a greater impact on pain and overall health.

The ultimate cure can be affected by three things, how you eat, how you move, and how you think. Combining Eastern and Western medicines will affect all three aspects and increase your chances of long-term health. There is no need to choose between the East and the West. We can benefit from the best of both worlds. If we simply use Western medicine to heal your pain, it is usually like putting a bandaid on the problem, because it is just treating local areas and physical symptoms. The more we can work hard to understand the body at all levels and give it what it needs to heal itself, the faster and more comprehensive we can heal.